Fear spread through my mother-in-law’s senior housing apartment building last week that the Trump administration’s announced pause on federal funding would strip residents of their Section 8 vouchers and SNAP benefits and end their deliveries from Meals on Wheels.
Referring to a slate of mean-spirited, backward-thinking executive orders Trump had previously signed, the now infamous Jan. 27 Office of Management and Budget memo said that “to the extent permissible under applicable law, Federal agencies must temporarily pause all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all Federal financial assistance, and other relevant agency activities that may be implicated by the executive orders.”
Why wouldn’t people getting federal financial assistance to keep a roof over their heads and food in their fridge feel like their government was treating them as disposable?
Neither those apparent exemptions nor a federal judge’s intervention mean my mother-in-law’s neighbors are wrong to be afraid. Nor does it mean they should relax.
A footnote in the Jan. 27 OMB memo says its reference to “all Federal financial assistance programs” does not “include assistance provided directly to individuals.” More significantly, a judge has paused implementation of the memo itself and the Trump administration ostensibly withdrew the memo. But neither those apparent exemptions nor a federal judge’s intervention mean my mother-in-law’s neighbors are wrong to be afraid. Nor does it mean they should relax.
Besides the more overarching reasons we should expect Trump to take a machete to our country’s social safety net, one reason for lingering concern is that Meals on Wheels falls outside the stated exemption in the OMB memo, in that it doesn’t provide direct assistance to individuals. Meals on Wheels CEO Ellie Hollander was clear on that point in a Jan. 28 interview with NBC News’ Ellison Barber. “The funding goes through the states, which then ultimately gets down to a Meals on Wheels provider who then provides that service to a senior in need, but there’s no direct cash to that person. It’s not considered a direct federal assistance program like Social Security or Medicare would be. So we’re concerned. It’s confusing. And what we’re concerned about is that nobody really seems to have the answer, and we don’t know to whom to go to help clarify.”
Not White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. When she was asked about the fate of Head Start and Meals on Wheels, she said the memo “does not affect individual assistance that’s going to Americans,” wrongly characterizing those programs.
Trump is a bringer of chaos and confusion. He is myopic and mercurial and shouldn’t be expected to be concerned about details such as whether this directive will kill a program that brings nutrition and social interaction to seniors. When the government itself takes on the characteristics of Trump’s personality — including his impulsiveness and inattention to detail — the American people are cruelly subjected to distress.
We ought to be able to trust that the U.S. government will do what the U.S. government has said it will do, but we’ve returned to the point on the country’s timeline when the word of the United States is no more reliable than the word of Donald Trump. Any promises the country has made, any treaty it has entered into, any laws Congress has passed, any funding Congress has appropriated is only functionally valid if it reflects the ever-changing will of Trump.
We ought to be able to expect reliability and predictability from our government. John Adams’ famous quote that “This is is a government of law, not of men” is considered foundational to who we are as a country. When the government takes on the characteristics of Trump, laws and rules become meaningless.
Consider the dozens of Department of Education employees who attended a “Diversity Change Agent” training in March 2019 — that is, during Trump’s first term — at the urging of department human resources officials. Trump’s administration has now put them on leave for attending that training, a union official told NBC News. He has also targeted FBI agents who participated in criminal investigations against him — as if those who did weren’t following orders from higher-ups.
On Tuesday, the U.S. announced it would stop accepting parcels from China and Hong Kong. Then it said never mind a few hours later.
When the government takes on the characteristics of Trump, laws and rules become meaningless.
Trump left fully vetted refugees who were about to board flights to America stranded in Afghanistan. He slammed the door shut on Central American migrants who had used an app developed by the Biden administration to make appointments to apply for asylum.
We ought to be better than this. We should expect rules and order and predictability from our government. Even the hard-hearted people who believe too many people are getting help with housing or food from the government shouldn’t feel good about seniors worrying they’ll go hungry.
After a week of residents worrying, Meals on Wheels made its expected delivery to my mother-in-law’s apartment building Thursday afternoon. Was the delivery made because the Trump administration never intended for its funding to be paused? Or was it made because the courts stopped the Trump administration from carrying out its plan?
Who knows? What we know is that during a Trump administration, chaos, confusion and unpredictability reign, all of which subject Americans to unnecessary torment.
